FULL of my new resolves, I went about my evening’s work, followed closely by Jennie, telling me all the time about her book. While listening to the charming story, I forgot, and put brindle into the black cow’s place. No sooner done, than Mr. Jeffries, who had a quick eye, sent me spinning across the stable floor, and Jennie into the house and up to her attic, where I found her an hour afterwards, with tears still on her cheeks.
“Don’t cry about it, Jennie;” and I drew up a little rocking-chair I had made for her out of an old one, and took her in my arms. “It was careless in me; I should have seen what I was about.”
“He said afterwards it would not have been much matter if the cattle had remained so all night. Oh, if we only had a home, like other children, Marston. I wonder why we haven’t;” and she nestled her brown head on my shoulder, and tried hard not to sob any more. Just then a sharp voice came up from the kitchen, and for once I felt like resisting. I was tired, my work was all done, and I sat quite still, holding Jennie tightly. Again and again the call.
“We must go, brother; Mr. Kirby said we must do what we have to do well, and then God will open a path for us. I do hope he will; don’t you?” Kissing my angry cheek, she put away her book, and ran down the narrow stairs. Brushing off the tears, I followed as quickly as possible.
“You’ve forgotten your wood, boy; this comes of reading books. If you don’t quit it, you can’t stay here, I can tell you;” and Mr. Jeffries stormed till he was tired, and then walked into the bar-room.
“Don’t mind his being cross, Marston,” said Mrs. Jeffries soothingly; “he’s not quite himself to-night; to-morrow he’ll be sorry.”
Tired as I was at bedtime I could not sleep, the day had been so pleasant notwithstanding the fatigue. I had listened to Mr. Kirby, and thought it would be easy to be good; and then he had prayed that I might be led. But before my work was done I had become angry and cross, and half questioning God’s goodness because Jennie and I had not a home, with some one to love and take care of us.
I went to the window where I could see the distant hills, the very mountain the top of which we had reached by continued effort. “Nothing is gained without labor,” Mr. Kirby had said. How easy it would be to do right, I thought, if we could always live with such people; and I looked up to the stars twinkling to each other in their beauty.
My heart was full, and yearned for sympathy; and to comfort myself, I went back and lived the cheering scenes of my life over again—calling up every word and look of my dear mother, then all Mr. Brisbane had said, and now Mr. Kirby, and my books, of which I could count several.
In going up the mountain Mr. Kirby had often caused me to look behind me, in that way getting an idea of the ascent we were really making. So in looking over the past I could see that I had made some advance, and insensibly my thoughts grew clearer. Again I looked up to the heavens; but I knew but little of God’s love. His precious promise was to me then a sealed voice. Still, there was a feeling of quiet stole over me, something that spoke comfort, for I went to sleep.
The next morning Mr. Kirby left, and I had so much to do, and so many calling upon me at once, that I had no time to tell him what I had resolved to tell him, namely, how forgetful I had been, and what a passionate feeling had swept over me. I meant to try and do better, but I had no time to tell him.
“Do right, Marston, and study all you can,” had been his last words. Mr. Jeffries was very kind, and as if to make amends for the last night, gave me an hour to myself after dinner. Taking our books, Jennie followed me to a flat rock under a gnarled apple-tree, and on a broken slate I pored over my sums, while she studied geography. Then I heard her lesson, and she questioned me in arithmetic; for with less instruction she was further advanced than I was. After that, we read the book Mr. Kirby had given her. It was a simple, unvarnished sketch of every-day life, with allusions that I could understand, and experiences so like my own that more than once I stopped to dry my eyes.
We had just finished, and were talking it over, when who should come across the garden but our father? We had not seen him in a good while, and there was something so kind in his look and manner, that we started at once to meet him.
“So you have not quite forgotten me,” he said, as Jennie kissed him and I clung to his hand.
“We can never do that, pa.” He sat down on the rock and held us to him, with his arms close around us.
“Are you willing to come home, Marston? You are getting to be a large boy, and can help me now; and I am going to try to do better.”
Had it not been for my new mother I should have jumped at the idea of going with my father; but when I thought of her my heart struggled against it. Again Mr. Kirby’s words came to my mind: “Do right, Marston.” Something told me it was right, if my father was trying to make a better man, to help him. So I answered resolutely,
“If you think it best, father; but I want to go to school, and do something better by and by.”
“That is what I want you to do, my son; and I will try and help you.”
He was sober, and spoke so kindly, we both cried when he kissed us good-by, and said he knew he had not been as good to us as he ought to have been since we had no mother. Dear father, it was a long time since we had seen him so kind; and it was to be a still longer time before we should see him so kind again.
“You will come down to-morrow night, children.”
“Yes, father.”
This arrangement did not suit Mr. Jeffries; but he said nothing against it, while his wife shook her head. “The same old story; it will be as bad as ever in a week,” she said to herself.
The next day, the last we stayed at the Jeffries’, a traveller presented me with a book entitled “Self Helps,” and never a miser rejoiced more over his treasure than I did when I caught sight of its contents. So there had been hosts of poor boys trying just as I was for something better; and at last they found it; so should I.
At sunset Jennie and I walked back to our old home. Our new mother received us kindly, and the baby crowed and clapped his hands, seeming to regard us as old acquaintances.
The days and weeks passed, and it was the middle of autumn. There was a little corn to be gathered, and a few potatoes to be dug; but father’s good promises had all vanished. He was not cross, neither did he often scold, but he stayed from home; and when he was there, he was too stupid to care for any of us.
Winter came, and I attended a school nearly a mile from us; but this time we had no such friend as Charles Brisbane. The teacher seemed to know that we were poor and miserable; and when I went in late, as I almost always did, he was sure to give me a sharp reprimand. In vain it was to rise at four o’clock: there was fire to make, there were paths to shovel, the cow to milk, and breakfast to get; for my new mother would not rise until the room was warm, and this in our house could not be till the fire had been burning a good while.
Poor little Jennie had to stay at home entirely. Still she studied, and Miss Grimshaw out of the kindness of her heart sent us each a slate for her Christmas present. Never were more acceptable gifts, and I question if any Christmas since has brought us more pleasure, brightened as it was by two new slates.
The winter proved to be unusually severe; the snow deeper than for years. We managed to live, how I hardly know. There was plenty of wood that could be had for the cutting; but I had not sufficient strength to accomplish much in this way, and had to content myself with drawing up fallen timber, and branches that the wind had scattered. Towards spring, father was gone more than ever, sometimes not coming home till late at night; and then not till Jennie and I had taken the lantern and gone down to the village after him.
One night he was later than usual; the day had been unusually bleak, a heavy snow-storm setting in before noon, and by sunset we could hardly wade through it. Ten o’clock, and our mother for the first time grew uneasy; the baby was asleep; she left Jennie to rock the cradle, and giving me the lantern, we started for the village.
We had not made half the distance before we were covered with such a thick mantle of snow as to render it necessary to stop and shake ourselves; but my step-mother had a resolute will, when she chose to put it in force. In vain I counselled her to return, and let me go alone; finding she could not be persuaded, I waded through, making as good a path as possible, holding up my lantern so that father could see it if he was really on the way.
It was twelve o’clock when we reached the village; the lights were nearly all out, only one room was open, and that was the fatal one that tempted him so often from home.
“No, your father is not here,” they said in answer to my inquiries. “He started for home before night. It is such a terrible storm, he may have stopped on the way.”
“More likely that he has fallen in the snow,” said mother; “it is frightfully cold, and the wind is drifting it in heaps.”
There were few words spoken as we went back. The storm had somewhat subsided, and far as the eye could reach spread out before us one mass of fleecy whiteness.
How our hearts thrilled, and then stood still, as we passed an eminence where the snow lay high and uneven: under that white covering father might be buried.
“Here is an uneven track,” and mother pointed to a pile of snow at the foot of the hill, and very near our own door. I held up the lantern, but for a moment could not move onward. So near us, and still we had gone so far! Nerving myself at last, I followed the steps, now filled with snow, but still perceptible.
It was as we feared. He had started for home, and had reached the foot of the hill, when he fell, too chilled or too insensible to rise.
Oh the agony of that night! He was our father, and deeply as he had erred, we loved him. Such a terrible death, and we knew not where to look for comfort.